Childlight

The weightlessness comes with the closing of eyes,

limbs cooled on white cotton, head pillowed soft

and you’re floating once more in Worthersee

where you learned to swim, splashing diamonds

to glitter the mountainside, bejewel the sky

till you left your mermaid’s tail behind to fly

kites over felt-like greenery, candy-bright, and you

bare-footed and agile in a frock fresh from tumbling

like Alice when you found her swirling in the hallway

mirror, laughing as you were photographed picking

the very first apple from your tree grown from seed

and when none tasted sweeter

you threw those balls to kaleidoscope the wishing,

stars of zigzagging primary colours caught and brought inside

kept as ringed-planets between your bubble-wands and picture-

diaries left open and undiscovered beneath your bed.

And still they are there, if you look past the summer-

dust carpeted in, autumn’s yellowing leaves and winter’s chill-

withering. Spring was only yesterday, you say, but you see

when you close your eyes, it might even have been today.

Flash Issue 8